How do you make fair teams for a pickup game?

Rank the players from strongest to weakest, then deal them out in a snake order. Taking turns (A, B, A, B) gives the first picker the best player and the first choice every round. A snake reverses the order each round, so the team that picks late in one round picks early in the next. Fantasy sports use the same idea for their drafts.

You need two things: a ranking and someone to run it. The ranking can come from ratings, levels or the organizer's own scores (more on that below). The person running it can be a captain who picks from the list, or the organizer, who simply deals the names out in order.

Do it from a list on a phone rather than picking aloud in front of everyone. Nobody wants to be the last name called.

Yes. Here are ten players with Elo-style ratings, ranked from A (strongest) to J, dealt out in the ten-player snake order from above.

Team 1 (A, D, E, H, I) totals 5,650 and Team 2 (B, C, F, G, J) totals 5,450. The gap is 200 points, or 40 per player. One swap closes it: E (1,100) moves to Team 2 and G (1,000) moves to Team 1, which shifts 100 points each way, and both teams land on 5,550.

How much do those gaps matter? On the standard Elo formula, a 100-point edge gives the stronger side an expected score of about 64%, and 200 points about 76%. Dividing a gap by the five players on a side gives the average edge per player, which is what the formula needs:

Treat the percentages as a rough guide, because team games depend on more than an average. The order of the rows is the point: each step makes the game closer.

Three more methods work when you have no ratings, want some luck in it, or want everyone involved.

• Random, then swap. Draw names from a hat, add up the two teams and swap one pair if the gap is big. Random alone is not enough when ability varies a lot. Of the 126 ways to split our ten players five against five, only 7 come within 50 points, and the average split is about 520 apart.
• Pairs, then a coin toss. Rank the players and pair neighbours (A and B, C and D, and so on). Flip a coin for each pair to decide who joins which team. It feels random, so nobody can say you stacked a side, and the gap can never exceed the sum of the pair differences: 400 for our ten players.
• Captains' picks. Two captains pick in snake order from a ranked list. Players like having a say, and captains who know the group catch what a rating misses, such as an injury or who plays well together.

If everyone is about the same level, skip the arithmetic and draw at random. Fairness is mostly about the spread of ability, and a random draw feels fairest to everyone when the spread is small.

Balance the things that have rules first, then balance skill inside each group.

• Mixed-gender teams. Split the players into two lists (women and men), rank each list and snake-draft each one. With six men and four women you get three men and two women on each side. If your league sets a required ratio per team, follow it first.
• An odd number of players. Give the extra player to the weaker side, or rotate a sub in and out every game so everyone sits out equally. Some football groups use a neutral joker who plays for whichever side has the ball.
• Positions. A rating does not say who can go in goal or set a volleyball. Make sure each side has a goalkeeper or a setter, then snake-draft the rest.
• Newcomers and guests. Treat someone you have never seen play as average for the group, and adjust after two or three games.

Rebalance when the games stop being close. Watch for these signals:

• One side wins by a wide margin twice in a row. Swap one pair of players before the next game.
• The same team wins three games running. Re-deal from scratch.
• Players arrive, leave or get injured. Re-run the draft with the players you have.
• Ratings or levels move. Re-rank once a month, or sooner if someone has clearly improved.

Rotate teams so nobody is stuck with the same partners:

• Re-deal every game for a drop-in group with changing numbers.
• Keep teams for a block of games, then re-deal for a league night or a short season.
• Winners stay on. The winning side keeps the court and the next group comes on. It suits casual basketball and volleyball when there are more than two teams' worth of players.
• Rotate partners. In doubles with four players, three games pair everyone with everyone exactly once:

For bigger groups, a Mexicano gives everyone a new partner each round.

Start with what you have and refine it. A rough ranking beats none, because the snake method absorbs small errors.

• Self-declared levels. Ask players to use a shared scale: NTRP for tennis, a numbered scale for padel, or beginner, intermediate or advanced for other sports. The tennis levels and padel levels guides explain the steps. A self-declared level is a guess, so treat it as a starting point.
• Two or three opinions. Average the organizer's scores with a regular's. One person's view carries one person's bias.
• Results. Win-loss records and recent scores beat memory, but they need a handful of games before they mean much.
• A rating system. An Elo-style rating adjusts after every confirmed result, so it follows form. New players move fast at first and then settle.

Whatever you use, say it out loud: "Teams are balanced by ratings, and we re-check them every month." People accept teams more easily when they know how they were made.

Flobit does not generate teams for casual games, but it gives you the numbers to run a good snake draft.

• Levels. Players declare a level for each sport: 1.0 to 7.0 for tennis and padel, and beginner, intermediate or advanced for the others. Other players can see it.
• A per-sport rating. Separate from the level, it is a standard Elo rating that updates when a result is confirmed. A new player begins somewhere from 900 to 1500, set by the declared level, or at 1000 with none. Early results count for more (the first 10 matches), doubles are measured against the opposing pair's average, and a disputed result is reversed. Treat a newer player's rating as provisional. See how ratings work.
• Level ranges on open matches. The host can set an optional level range, shown on the listing as guidance, and approves each request, so the pool you pick teams from is more likely to be close in ability. The host approves each player and slots them into a side. See open matches.
• Balanced partners in a Mexicano. A Mexicano is a doubles format that Flobit offers for tennis, padel, table tennis and basketball. Players sign up alone and get a new partner each round. You can choose random partners or partners balanced by skill. If the rounds are drawn from the table, balancing shapes the first round and the table decides after that. If the rounds are planned in advance, balancing shapes every round, and you can also ask that nobody partners the same player twice, as far as the numbers allow. To balance, the organizer rates each player from 1 (lightest) to 5 (strongest), and unrated players count as 3. The organizer can also swap two players before a round starts.

The rating that balances a Mexicano is the organizer's own score, not the Elo rating, so it is only as good as your scores. For a regular weekly game, the pickup games guide covers the rest of running the night.

How do you make fair teams for pickup games?

What is a snake draft?

How do you make fair teams when players have different skill levels?

How do you make fair mixed-gender teams?

What do I do with an odd number of players?

How often should teams change?

Does Flobit have a balanced teams generator?